1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for acquiring and analyzing data on users' personal profiles, such as audience ratings, and providing the service of delivering various information, including broadcast and advertisement content, according to the users' personal profiles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today's advertisement media include newspapers, magazines, television and radio. In all of these, advertisements in principle are broadcast to an indefinite number of readers or viewers.
FIG. 1 is a conceptual view showing an example of the current way of delivering broadcast and advertisement content. CATV content, among broadcast content delivered from a broadcast content delivery section 1, is input through a set-top box 3 for which each of users 2 has signed a contract, to a videocassette recorder 4 (hereinafter referred to as a VCR 4) and to a television 5 as well. Similarly, the content of terrestrial and satellite broadcasting is input through their respective antennas to the VCR 4 and television 5. Thus, the user 2 selectively views desired broadcast content input to the VCR 4 and television 5.
In other words, today's broadcast content in the system shown in FIG. 1 is delivered from the broadcast content delivery section 1 to an indefinite number of users 2 (or subscribers in the case of CATV or fee-based satellite broadcasting).
Now, the relationship between broadcast content and advertisement content is considered. A television broadcasting station, which is an example of the broadcast content delivery section 1, works in cooperation with a production company to produce broadcast content that the user 2 may want. An advertiser asks the station to insert advertisement content into the broadcast content in question, provided that the advertiser sponsors the broadcast content.
Accordingly, a viewer, who is the user 2 and is supposed to view the advertisement content of the advertiser, watches broadcast content of interest.
However, the flow of information in such a conventional way of content delivery is unilateral: information flows from the broadcasting station serving as the broadcast content delivery section 1 to the user 2. Therefore, the broadcasting station or advertiser does not know what action (change in attitude) a user who viewed the advertisement content has taken.
This means that in the case of content delivery in the broadcasting form shown in FIG. 1, it is difficult to precisely measure the audience rating or the effectiveness of advertisements (cost-performance ratio), or quantitatively evaluate improvements in the effectiveness of advertisements.
The conventional way of delivering advertisement content takes advantage of the fact that in broadcasting, content is delivered to an indefinite number of users. It is therefore difficult to identify each individual user and deliver advertisement content according to the profile of the user.
One possible, popular method of acquiring the profile of the user 2 is questionnaire survey. With this method, however, the data acquired by questionnaire with regard to the preferences, life style, or sense of value of the user 2 does not always remain consistent and may become obsolete over time.
Audience ratings are used as an index of the degree of attention to any particular broadcast content. The number of samples taken from a surveyed audience is usually small, however, compared with the statistical population. At present, therefore, the audience rating is determined by estimation.
The content of broadcasting as an advertising medium is merely transient, appealing to the user 2 only through advertising images. Even if the user 2 is interested in a particular advertisement that is broadcast, there is no means of obtaining information on that advertisement via the broadcast content.
In broadcast content delivery based on broadcasting, a program producer (content provider) has the following problems:    1) The delivery usually requires large-scale program production, which is a high barrier against participation.    2) The program producer cannot provide such small-scale content as those dedicated to data only.    3) Since there is only a limited number of media channels, significant cost is required to own such channels.
What the user 2 receives is normalized content only, so the user 2 cannot receive any personalized content.
One possible means for solving these problems inherent with broadcasting-based content delivery is editing such items of user information as phone numbers into a directory and providing the directory to system users who are advertisers.
In the field of the Internet, it may also be possible to obtain users' personal information by identifying user information (cookies) embedded in a WWW browser on a Web site. Directory information in the former case has the following problems, however:    1) The information is not up to date.    2) The obtained directory information must be accessed by system users themselves, one item at a time.    3) Simultaneous, real-time access is not possible to all users contained in the directory information.    4) It is difficult to obtain a directory based on profiles customized for each system user. Creating such a directory is extremely costly.
When obtaining users' personal information according to cookies in the latter case, the following problems arise:    1) obtaining such information involves using personal data without permission from the user.    2) Such personal information is available only on a Web site basis. User information therefore is not controlled in an integrated manner.    3) User profiles can be changed on a Web site basis. Thus, consistency of profile data is not guaranteed, and its reliability is low.    4) It is not possible for an advertiser to carry out “push-type” content delivery intended for specific target users.    5) It is not possible to carry out marketing only, without running a Web site.